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NEW YORK—Billed as Hollywood's biggest night, the Academy Awards telecast was also TV's biggest show last week, helping crown ABC as overall prime-time winner.

Sunday's Oscarcast was easily top-ranked, with an audience of nearly 40 million viewers.

Adding to the luster was the 90-minute preview, which ABC shrewdly logged as three distinct half-hours. The final segment of "Oscar's Red Carpet" (airing just before the Oscarcast began) drew 24 million viewers, ranking second for the week, while the middle half-hour, seen by nearly 17 million viewers, ranked fourth. The first half-hour claimed a healthy 14th place with nearly 13 million viewers, the Nielsen Co. said Tuesday.

For the week in prime time, ABC averaged 10.68 million viewers (6.5 household rating, 11 share), edging out CBS, with 10.06 million (6.3 rating, 10 share). Far behind were Fox with 6.84 million (4.1 rating, 6 share), NBC with 5.42 million (3.4 rating, 5 share), CW with 1.14 million (0.8 rating, 1 share) and ION Television with 1.11 million (0.7 rating, 1 share).

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.